In recent years, seed funding has become more formalized. Many of the folks on this list aren't "angels" in the classic sense of the word—i.e.individuals who became rich and now spray money around. This list includes early-stage VCs and other professional investors who make seed investments.

We should also note that we purposely did not include contact information for the early stage investors. If you can't hustle your way to meet one of these people, you probably don't deserve their money.

The Silicon Valley Angel 50 is the first installment of an annual guide SAI will be producing. It's going to get better with time.

To compile this list, we took hundreds of coffee meetings, took recommendations, and asked for survey responses. If your name isn't on it, don't take offense. Silicon Valley is a vibrant community and it is impossible to recognize everyone who's making it thrive. But we also can't include you if we don't know you exist.

We want to thank the readers, companies, investors, and executives who have taken time over the past few months to submit nominations and share information with us. We thank our colleague Andrea Huspeni for performing most of the background research. The names were compiled by Alyson Shontell, Jay Yarow and Nicholas Carlson.

Dave McClure, 500 Startups

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Bio: Founding Partner at 500 Startups, an incubator program that invests seed funding in companies while also providing mentoring. McClure has been involved in the tech industry for some time with past stints at PayPal, Founders Fund and Simply Hired.

Steven Chen, Independent

Bio: Co-founder of AVOS Systems, an online company that has Delicious, Mei.fm, and Zeen under its umbrella. Previously, Chen was the co-founder of YouTube, which he sold to Google for $1.65 billion in 2006.

Joshua Schachter, Independent

Bio: CEO of Tasty Labs, a software service for social recommendation and geoURL, a site that looks up sites based on URL and location. Previously, he was the founder of Delicious, which sold to Yahoo for about $15 - $20 million, according to CNN. He has also worked at Google and Yahoo.

He tells Wired, "We don't know where we are in this cycle. We can't know how much longer this abundance of capital will last, but I don't want to be a part of it. When I see a massive number of new investors and carpetbaggers coming in, it's time to get out."

When Hartz does come back to the investing world though, you'd be lucky to have him in your corner.

Peter Thiel, Founders Fund

Bio: Thiel is a partner in Founders Fund, an early stage investment company, and president of Clarium Capital, a hedge fund.

He also is a philanthropist and began the Thiel Fellowship, a program that pays students $100,000 to drop out of school to focus on being an entrepreneur. Thiel made his money when he was the co-founder and CEO of PayPal from 1998 to 2002 before it became a subsidiary of eBay for $1.5 billion.

Keith Rabois, Independent

Bio: Considered part of the PayPal Mafia, Rabois is the COO of Square, the mobile payment system. Rabois has been active in the tech community with past stints at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide, and Clarium Capital.

Chris Sacca, Lowercase Capital

Chris Sacca

Bio: Sacca spends his time at Lowercase Capital focusing on startups. In the past, Sacca worked at Google and was part of the executive team at Speedera Networks, which was acquired by Akamai in 2005 for approximately $500 million.

Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz

Bio: Partner of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the biggest venture firms in Silicon Valley with $950 million in capital. Andreessen is also the co-founder of Ning, which was acquired by Glam Media for $150 million in 2011, and previously co-founded Netscape and served as the CTO at AOL.

Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz

Bio: Ben Horowitz is a founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs become successful CEOs and build important and enduring companies.

Horowitz was a co-founder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by HP in 2007 for $1.6 billion, and was appointed vice president and general manager of Business Technology Optimization for Software at HP. He serves on the board of many companies including Jawbone, Lytro, Magnet, Nicira and Tidemark. Horowitz also pens his own blog, Ben's Blog (www.bhorowitz.com), where he covers everything from how CEOs should hire executives to how to minimize politics in your company

Mitch Kapor, Kapor Capital

Bio: Partner at Kapor Capital and director at the non-profit organization, Level Playing Field Institute. In the past, Kapor was the founder of software company Lotus, which was acquired by IBM for $3.5 billion.

Kevin Rose, Google Ventures

Bio: Partner at Google Ventures. Previously, Rose was the founder of Digg and the CEO of Milk. Rose made much of his fortune as an angel when he invested in Twitter, Zynga, and Square, according to The Wall Street Journal

Naval Ravikant, Hit Forge

Bio: Ravikant spends his time angel investing and is also one of the authors of Venture Hacks and helps run AngelList. Previously, Ravikant co-founded Genoa Corporation, which was acquired by Finisar, Epinions, and Vast.com.

Jeff Clavier, SoftTech VC

Bio: Founder and partner of SoftTech VC, an early stage investing firm. Previously, Clavier was the president of RVC Capital, the company that oversaw the $600 million that Reuters invested in companies.

Dave Morin, Independent

Christopher Michel

Bio: Co-founder and CEO of Path, a social network for mobile. Prior to Path, Morin was one of the first hirees at Facebook, where he assisted in Facebook Connect and Facebook Platform. He has also worked for Apple.

Manu Kumar, K9 Ventures

Bio: Kumar is the founder of K9 Ventures, a seed venture fund. Kumar has been involved in the tech industry for some time. He was the CEO of the software company SneakerLabs, which was acquired by Octane Software in 2000, and also served as the CEO of iMeet, a web conference company, which merged with Netspoke in 2002.

Paul Buchheit and Garry Tan, Y Combinator

Bio: Buchheit is a partner at Y Combinator. He is also credited with creating Gmail and was the founder of FriendFeed, an online social sharing platform. FriendFeed was bought by Facebook in 2009 for approximately $50 million.

Tan is a partner at Y Combinator, the successful early stage venture firm started by Paul Graham. Prior to Y Combinator, Tan co-founded Posterous, a blogging company, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012.

Paul Graham, Y Combinator

Bio: Partner in Y Combinator, an early stage investing firm. Graham has been around the tech industry for some time. Back in 1995, he co-founded Viaweb, an application that allowed users to build their own e-commerce store, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998 for a reported $49 million. Graham also played a pivotal role in spam filters.

Ron Conway, SV Angel

Bio: Referred by some as a super angel of Silicon Valley, Conway has been an active member of the tech sector for over thirty years. Previously, he was the founder and partner of the Angel Investors LP, which invested in big name companies like Google. Prior to being an angel investor, Conway was the co-founder of Altos Computer Systems, which went public in 1982. He was also the CEO of Personal Training Systems, which was acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft.

Charles Hudson, SoftTech VC

Bio: Partner at SoftTech VC. Hudson also serves as the CEO and co-founder of Bionic Panda Games. Hudson, a veteran in tech, has also been involved with the event company Social Gaming Summit, which was sold to Mediabistro; and Serious Business, which was acquired by Zynga.

Josh Elman, Greylock Partners

Bio: Currently, Elman is a principal at Greylock Partners, a firm that focuses on both early stage and growing startups. Elman has spent quite some time in tech as his past stints include working in product at Twitter, helping launch Facebook Connect, overseeing product at Zazzle, and he was involved in LinkedIn growth and Real Player.

Seth Goldstein, Independent

Turtable Co-founder

Bio: Chairman of Turntable.fm, a social music sharing service. Over the years, Goldstein has been an active entrepreneur, founding a number of startups: Stickybits, Root Markets, Majestic Research, and SiteSpecific.

Tina Sharkey, Independent

Bio: Married to Seth Goldstein, Sharkey sits on numerous boards including Baby Buggy, Mommy Tech, and Future of Storytelling. In the past Sharkey has held several positions in tech, which include BabyCenter, AOL, and iVillage.

Bio: Founder of The Social+Capital Partnership, a venture firm that invests approximately $200 to $400 million. In the past, Palihapitiya served as vice president at Facebook in mobile growth and platform and monetization.

Rob Hayes, First Round Capital

Bio: Hayes is a partner at First Round Capital. He has been involved in venture funding for quite some time with past stints at philanthropic investment company Omidyar Network, and Palm where he assisted with overseeing its venture arm.

Evan Williams, The Obvious Corporation

Bio: Williams is the CEO of The Obvious Corporation, an internet app company that acquired Odea and Twitter, a company Williams also co-founded and was the CEO of. The Obvious Corporation provides resources to a handful of companies. He has also worked at Google and developed Blogger.

Biz Stone, The Obvious Corporation

Bio: Chief Creative Officer at The Obvious Corporation. an internet app company that acquired Odea and Twitter, and also provides resources to a handful of companies. Stone was also the co-founder and creative director of Twitter. In the past, Stone worked at Google assisting with Blogger and was part of the launch of Xanga and Odeo.

Jim Breyer, Breyer Capital

Bio: Partner at Accel. Breyer has been a staple in the tech industry, as an early investor in Facebook. He also sits on various boards: Dell, Facebook, Walmart, Brightcove, Etsy, and News Corporation. He played a pivotal role in getting Accel Partners to invest early in Facebook. He was so confident in the social network, he invested $1 million of his own money.

Shervin Pishevar, Menlo Ventures

Shervin Pishevar

Bio: Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, a seed stage investment firm, is also the founder of Social Gaming Network, a company focused on developing games for mobile. Pishevar has had an extensive career in tech. He has not only founded several companies but also served as the general manager at Mozilla.

Tim Draper, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Bio: Founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an early stage investment firm. Under the DJF umbrella, Draper has opened up 30 other venture firms in various cities around the world. Prior to the VC world, Draper was involved in education.

Aydin Senkut, Felicis Ventures

Bio: Founder of Felicis Ventures, an early stage investment company. Over the last several years, the firm has funded many startups that have been acquired by big name companies like Google and Twitter. Before Felicis Ventures, Senkut worked at Google as a senior manager, where he oversaw partner development in Asia.

Georges Harik, Independent

Bio: Co-founder of both hslabs and imo.im, a IM network. Previously, Harik worked at Google as the director of Googlettes, an incubator program. While overseeing Googlettes, he assisted with Gmail, GTalk, Video, Picasa, Orkut, Groups, Mobile and AdSense.

Jawed Karim, Independent

Bio: Founder of Youniversity Ventures, a firm that looks to assist students and first time entrepreneurs with startups. In the past, Karim co-founded YouTube, which he sold to Google for $1.65 billion in 2006. He also had a previous stint at PayPal, where he assisted with the fraud system.

Firm Associated With: Youniversity Ventures

Some Portfolio Companies: Qwiki, TotBox, Eventbrite

Twitter: n/a

AngelList Page: n/a

Investments Per Year: 2-3

Investment Per Startup: n/a

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Adam D'Angelo, Independent

Bio: Cofounder of Quora, former CTO of Facebook

Firm Associated With: n/a

Some Portfolio Companies: Instagram, Asana, Quora (he invested ~ $20 million in his own company)